Methanol poisoning: a review and case study of four patients from central Australia

Methanol intoxication, a rare and potentially lethal form of poisoning, usually results from ingestion and occasionally inhalation of methanol. Initial symptoms of blurred vision, elongated anion gap and metabolic acidosis are typically delayed and may not at first be recognised as methanol-related complaints. Once diagnosed, treatment must be prompt and definitive. As well as general supportive care, ethanol infusion, dialysis and alkalinization from the mainstays of treatment. The cases described in this paper are compared to previous reports from other countries worldwide and contrast the variance in outcome often seen in methanol poisoning. The paper describes two tragic deaths and two lucky survivors, all of whom had consumed a cocktail of methanol and other alcoholic beverages at the same party. The ICU nurse's role in managing the methanol-intoxicated patient relies on that person's sound knowledge of the unusual biochemical reactions occurring in the body and the need to institute definitive and supportive measures to help both patient and family recover.     

Analysis of multiple geological datasets from the English Lake District

A geological database comprising coregistered Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) regional multielement stream sediment geochemistry, regional gravity and aeromagnetics, and geological map data has been established, in raster format, for the area of the English Lake District. To study spatial correlations within the database, TM imagery and its first-order structurally enhanced filter derivatives are combined with regional survey data using intensity-hue-saturation transforms and stereoscopic-view generation techniques. These are then overlaid with line and polygon information from other exploration datasets. Datasets are combined in a manner which maintains the identity of each dataset. The imagery produced demonstrates the power of image presentation for efficient multidata analysis.<>     

High performance evacuated solar collectors—design,applications and viability

The design of evacuated collectors developed in various laboratories is reviewed and the research and development work on all glass evacuated collector at the University of Sydney is discussed In detail Long-term comparative test data for flat plate and evacuated collectors and the projected economics of large volume manufacture of all-glass collectors indicate the viability of evacuated collectors for applications such as domestic water heating.     

Lack of DMBT1 expression in oesophageal, gastric and colon cancers

The cell-wall characteristics of Gardnerella vaginalis grown in conventional and biofilm systems were studied by electron microscopy. The gram-positive nature of the cell wall was confirmed. Novel cell-wall particles which appeared to be associated with cell division were also identified, particularly in organisms of biofilm origin.     

Variable population size and evolution acceleration: a case study with a parallel evolutionary algorithm

With current developments of parallel and distributed computing, evolutionary algorithms have benefited considerably from parallelization techniques. Besides improved computation efficiency, parallelization may bring about innovation to many aspects of evolutionary algorithms. In this article, we focus on the effect of variable population size on accelerating evolution in the context of a parallel evolutionary algorithm. In nature it is observed that dramatic variations of population size have considerable impact on evolution. Interestingly, the property of variable population size here arises implicitly and naturally from the algorithm rather than through intentional design. To investigate the effect of variable population size in such a parallel algorithm, evolution dynamics, including fitness progression and population diversity variation, are analyzed. Further, this parallel algorithm is compared to a conventional fixed-population-size genetic algorithm. We observe that the dramatic changes in population size allow evolution to accelerate.